


just call me angel of the morning, baby

by Catharrington



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mob, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24853825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catharrington/pseuds/Catharrington
Summary: “Billy Hargrove,” he answers, Billy answers. Flicks his blue eyes from the floor to Steve, looks at him from under thick black eyelashes. One eye is watercolor bruised and they both have smudged coal dark circles. Their darkness is striking in the clinical whiteness of the hallway. Grabs Steve by the bottom of his rib cage and pulls him to attention.“You really gonna get me out of here?”“I promise, Billy,” Steve whispers.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 83





	just call me angel of the morning, baby

Steve wasn’t having a good time trying to reason with the head of this rival family, Cyle Cooper. They were on a coastline house in the lowest part of California. Steve was hot in his button up shirt, already had the top two buttons open and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows in a sour attempt at cooling off, yet he still smiled with all his charm.

“Think about it?” He repeated Cyle’s words back to him in a joking sing song. Picking up a sliced cucumber on his plate and chewing it slow, making eye contact with the other leader, Steve hummed as he considered his words. “The supply here is great. Your product is desirable. But you can’t get anywhere outside of Cali without our hands I’m afraid. Harrington’s control the states your supplier wants to run though.”

Steve took a pause here to be slightly dramatic. He savored the sliced vegetables juice on his tongue, before continuing. “This deal will stop a lot of problems before they even start. Think about that?”

Cyle was leaned backwards in his chair, the metal legs not touching the ground. He was a tall, lanky, creepy looking guy. The exact image of a cocaine supplier. Steve felt his skin crawl. But he wasn’t as intimidating as Steve’s own father back home.

The man who sent him here with one suitcase and a promise of a promotion if all goes well.

“I’m only slightly interested in the family’s old business, any longer. You know...,” Cyle said, snapping his chair forward. The metal rang out a clank. Leveling Steve with a glare. Making his skin crawl in the heat of the sun. “Now that my father is dead, Cooper senior, and I’m the head of this snake... I’m arranging to change the supply ever so slightly.”

Steve has just arrived to their ginormous plantation house, long white pillars outside with cloud soft white flowers and arching dark green willow trees draped across the huge yard. He was blushing as he gave his bags off and came round back to the garden for lunch.

In a part of Steve’s head, he imagined it would be simple. Lots of things in his life with his pretty face and charms are easy. But now, as he sits at the glossy wicker furniture and gets caged in by two men in sharp navy suits, he’s starting to believe this won’t be easy.

“You should freshen up after such a long flight, Steve Harrington,” Cyle leaned back casually in his chair once more as Steve stood up to be escorted away. “Lots more to talk about at our scheduled supper tonight.”

Steve itched, still took another sliced cucumber off his plate and ate it stiffly, giving Cyle a nonthreatening smile as he followed the men in suits inside the house.

Clinic, is the first word Steve considers as he walks through the spacious plantation house of the Coppers’. All sharp white lines and clean white tiles, a spindly golden painted staircase leading downwards, all of it was impersonal and faux. Steve came from old money, from wooden framed oil paintings and indoor fountains meticusally kept clean, none of that was here.

He follows the two men downstairs and around a corner to a row of copy pasted rooms. His is the first one. The white wooden door shut behind him with a soft whoosh of air, the lock clicking into place.

Steve’s neck pricked with goosebumps at the sound.

He focused on unzipping his suitcase that was laying in the middle of a California king size bed and still felt uneasy even as he pulled out the small handgun he packed. Checking the clip to make sure it wasn’t compromised, he glanced uneasy around the room.

There wasn’t much. More empty and never used white furniture. A newly bought lamp shade and empty suit bags in the closet. Didn’t find anywhere they could leave a bug or camera. Slipping off his shoes so he’s quieter in his socks, he decides he wants answers to his conspiracy. He felt along the door, jimmied the lock with one of his many credit cards, felt his pulse quicken when it gave way with a faint click.

The whole place didn’t feel right. It felt like a front. He wasn’t use to that, of course he knows how to put up a business front or a front of a lie, but this felt like a cage. Holding something in. Holding him in now.

Steve wandered down the long hallways. He’s underground so the only lights are matte cones on the walls covering bare bulbs and giving off an eariy blurry glow. The winding hallways go on longer than he assumed. Each door the same. Each door having a cone lamp next it. On the dozen one he notices a small stamped number on it, and then looks for it on the next one. That’s not a great sign.

He hears a voice farther down the hallway. Right where the corner turns, he presses himself to the wall and brings his face to the very edge so he can listen in.

“Keep him down,” one man shouts.

“I’ve got him,” another replies, then there’s a shuffling and a groan. “Fucking toy doesn’t know his place yet.”

Steve’s ears perk up. He’s heard that before. During a past deal his father ordered him to turn down. A new thing gaining traction that brings in money faster than drugs, guns, anything else. The buying and selling of people.

Inhaling sharply, Steve moves so just his eye can see around the corner. He sees two men, large and wearing the same navy suits as the ones who took him to his numbered room. One had a gun held limp at his side, while the other was knelt on the floor wrestling to get another man’s hands behind his back. This man was half naked, wearing only a pair of cotton white sweats and a snarl on his face as he fought back.

Steve’s breath came out in a gasp as he noticed the half naked man was bleeding from his nose heavy streaks of red over the white floor. He’s built strong and muscles rippling, but he’s marked up with purple and black bruises across his pretty tanned skin.

He’s abused, a toy, nothing but merchandise to these people. Steve doesn’t think as he steps around the corner, swinging his arms curled around his handgun up and pointing at the first guy in the suit. The one with the gun. He drops him quickly; one shot to the stomach— one to the head. Then turns down to the next. Steve feels a pang of remorse as the lackey has his mouth hanging open in a shocked way.

Steve motions with the end of his smoking gun for him to get off the floor, eyeing him as he gets up on shaky legs with his hands itching around the hem of his suit jacket, until Steve drops him too. Painting the white wall behind him red.

Then the toy on the ground moves quicker than Steve would have given him credit for. He’s up and moving and has his huge calloused hands around Steve’s wrist, trying to pry the gun away.

“Get off me!” Steve groans low, trying to keep his voice down as they wrestle. The toy has muscles that flex as he pulls, but Steve is trained. His pulse heavy in his veins. He doesn’t let go of his gun, all the while his thumb is no where near the trigger.

“I’m not going to—,” but before he can finish he’s being shoved backwards. Walked from the center of the hallway to the clean white wall. He’s shoved flush against it, his head bouncing sharply from the force.

“Save it, asshole!” The toy hisses right in his hair, burrowing his face close enough Steve hears the way his teeth click together in his growl.

“Listen to me, asshole,” Steve hisses back, “I’m not making a deal with these gross bastards! Help me and I’m walking you out of here free as a bird!”

His voice makes the toy lean backwards comically. Gets himself at arms length so he can look at Steve. Look up the one inch Steve has on him. They meet eyes and his are a stormy blue that are made impossibly bright in all the artificial light of this underground dungeon. Steve wonders for a moment how those eyes would look reflecting the waves of the ocean. Puts it out of his mind to sneer at the toy, demanding his reply.

“You’re the other family? The one that’s supposed to be here makin’ a deal?” The toy’s voice is softer now. Understanding settling in over his flight or fight response.

“Harrington,” Steve supplies.

“Jesus Christ,” the toy steps back more but leaves one hand on Steve’s shirt, pressing the still wet with sweat fabric to the patch of his chest hair like he’s holding him down.

“You can call me Steve?” he teases. Maybe not the right time. But it gets the other laughing, a proper rolling laugh with his deep voice that makes Steve crack his own smile.

“Billy Hargrove,” he answers, Billy answers. Flicks his blue eyes from the floor to Steve, looks at him from under thick black eyelashes. One eye is watercolor bruised and they both have smudged coal dark circles. Their darkness is striking in the clinical whiteness of the hallway. Grabs Steve by the bottom of his rib cage and pulls him to attention.

“You really gonna get me out of here?”

“I promise, Billy,” Steve whispers.

He’s pissed at himself. Knows he’s got a twinge of self hatred brewing, a mix of his self hatred and his confusion with the desire for men’s company just as much as woman’s, but achieving neither. Under his fathers thumb he hasn’t achieved anything. Steve’s been lonely for a while. He can feel himself already getting lost in those blue eyes.

He studies Billy just for another moment, flexing his fingers over the handle of his heavy handgun so he isn’t tempted to touch naked chest. Watches with half lidded eyes as Billy wipes his bloody nose with the back of his hand, bloody knuckles doing nothing but smearing the red.

Steve’s breath catches. Under Billy’s hand still pressing his chest to the wall, his heart jumps.

Then Steve knows they have to move, a voice inside his head reminding them high pitched about the danger. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he mutters bitterly, shaking the metal of his gun so it makes a clicking nose. Points down the hallway.

Billy picks up on leading the way. Seems to know how he planned on escaping already. Steve follows close with his gun pulled up tightly to his chest. Pointed to the ceiling while he isn’t pointing it at anyone.

They walk silently for an eternity down the long white hallway. Leaving the bodies of the two men behind them. They turn once, then another time. Billy changes from how he was powering forward to glancing room number to room number. Steve gets caught up in imagining the horrors of how many rooms there are under this plantation house, he almost doesn’t notice Billy stop.

Until he just barley misses colliding with him. Billy’s arm shoots out and wraps around Steve’s thin waist. Huddling him against the wall again, his bloody nose slowed down in the dripping but he still smells like copper. Cherries and salt, sweet and bitter, beautiful and broken, his blood comes off his naked chest and rubs on Steve’s shirt. It’s enough to make his breath stop if he wasn’t already holding it.

More men are at the end of the hall, shuffling around the bottom of a staircase that looks similar to the one he descended from.

Steve has half the mind to blow them away, no questions, he’s seen the way they operate. His trigger finger itches. But Billy’s got his arms on either side of his waist. Pinning him and his gun to the wall.

The men get closer and search around, seemingly expecting while patrolling. Steve gulps.

“Let me,” he nods towards them.

“We have to be quiet,” Billy hisses. Steve doesn’t get it, why do they have to be quiet now, their noise didn’t alert anyone back in the maze of hallways when he slept two others. But Billy’s eyes were hardened, serious. He seemed to hold all the cards.

Steve sighed as he flipped the safety on his gun, turning it around to use as a club with a wink.

Billy rolled his eyes. But the tension in his arms let up, let Steve off the wall enough to turn and watch as the guards patrolled.

Then, just as they got closest to their corner, Billy sprang with the same electricity quickness as before and tackled him down just as his back turned. There was his head bouncing off the ground and a grunt as the only noise before the man stopped moving.

Steve was behind Billy, slower, but right on the other man. As he turned to investigate he gets met with the butt of Steve’s handgun. He sends the guy sprawled out on the ground, his navy suit messy. And both done very quietly.

Billy leads in the clean up, pulling his guy by his feet to the side of the hall. Steve mirrors him with effort, his arms are not scrawny but for sure not as thick as Billy’s.

“Need help?” Billy asks, like an asshole, as he watches Steve struggle to prop the man up next to the other in the corner.

“Blow me,” Steve huffs out the side of his mouth, kicking the guy into place for good measure.

Billy doesn’t reply right away. Steve has to turn around to see that his pretty beaten to a pulp face is flushed with blood, not just the dried blood under his nose, but a rosy blush. Oh, Steve thinks, how promising.

“Didn’t you say let’s go, pretty boy?” Billy reminds him, jabbing his finger over his shoulder. Steve straightens up, using a puff of air to get a loose piece of his long hair off his forehead, one hand reaching for the gun he stuck in the belt of his pants, when suddenly Steve freezes.

There’s a click, a cock back of a gun, and the door that the guards were patrolling opens with a creeping noise of metal on metal

Billy’s half naked body covers in goose bumps as they both watch in slow motion as the door opens to another round of men with their suits buttoned fashionability and long shotguns pointed straight to Billy. The toy puts his hands in the air, his ocean blue eyes big as the gulps of breath he sucks down.

“Thought you could-,” one man opens his mouth to spew something, some hateful practiced one liner, but Steve isn’t having it.

He drops the semi circle of men flooding out the doorway like shooting glass bottles off a dense post. One at a time. The voice of his father in his ear telling him to straighten his back, maintain his steady breath, stop being such a pussy.

Only lets out a breath as the last one drops. Blood dripping down the steps of the staircase as the bodies stop moving just like the rest. Steve gulps down the stench of death. Wonders how many guards this Cooper bastard has loitering around his business front plantation house. Wonders how many he has to kill before he’s fuffilied his promise to Billy.

Steve gets jumpy when Billy drops his arm on his shoulder. Squeezes it, reassures him and thanks him at the same time. Then with not too many words nods towards the steps.

They take them together, two at a time, stepping around the bodies as they reach the top. It’s the same sort of steps up until that point, but where the other lead to a gold banister and bright gardens— this one leads to concrete.

Billy seems unfazed as they walk into it. Steve has to take a second to gulp. Tastes stale air.

There’s tunnels running down either side made with commercial dark grey concrete that only has strings of bare florescents lighting the way. Billy takes a side and rushes down it. His feet loud as they hit naked on the floor.

“Just up ahead,” he explains, “this is the transportation tunnels. They bring toys down here so they ain’t seen. So they get confused and can’t get back out. To keep them locked good.” He stops abruptly. Keeping his eyes forward, the muscle under his jaw working. “Brought me this way.”

Steve has his gun in one hand, lowers it to the ground, and slowly wraps his other hand around Billy’s bicep. He gives a squeeze. A grounding promise that he intends to keep hanging in the air. Steve points his gun down the tunnel as insurance.

“Keep leading me,” he whispers loud into the quiet.

Billy nods and does just that. Rushing forward like he hadn’t stopped in the first place. Steve follows with a tighter grip on his handgun.

The tunnels go on for a long way, the maze of the hallways a scientists game of mice and cheese compared to the labyrinth their in now. Steve’s feet only on socks are getting cold, he can’t imagine how Billy half naked must feel. Thank god, he doesn’t have time to ask. There’s a crack of sunlight spilling out right ahead of them.

Flicks of particles dancing in the light don’t mask its hideousness. The hallway gives to a door made out of wrought iron, slit down the middle with bars like a jailers cell. It leads to a more unfished room with dirt floors and wooden walls.

Billy tries the bars with a shove but they don’t move. Steve steps up close to him and pulls as well, yanking even with new sweat dripping down his forehead and across the drop of his back. But the bars don’t budge.

“Steve,” pressing his forehead to the hot metal, Billy moans out. His fever giving way to a tiredness Steve can see in the muscles of his back. “I’m- Gods- I couldn’t plan for this-,”

“You didn’t bring a crowbar?” Steve says sharply. Billy snaps up and turns to him, he’s met with Steve’s brilliant charming smile. “All the bulge you’ve got packed in those sweat pants and you didn’t bring a crowbar?”

Billy opens his mouth to gape like a fish, but before he can talk again Steve winks. Leans against the cement wall and holds his handgun to his chest and winks.

The plan is picked up easily enough, Billy stands to the other side of the narrow hall to shield himself as best he can while Steve points the barrel of his gun to the hinges of the metal drilled into cement.

“This gonna work?” he asks. “You’ve been pretty handy with that damn thing until now, but do you really think this is going to work?”

Steve bites his lower lip, thinks about it, then shrugs. He doesn’t know. But he smiles.

“Got another plan, hot shot?”

“Nah,” Billy winces.

“Then it’s gonna work.” Steve turns away to focus. Lines up his shot. And the cement gets blown back with a lurching shot. One two, quick succession and the hinge swings free off the cement. Then Steve, his ears ringing to the point they might be bleeding, lowers the gun to the next set and does the same thing.

The door falls forward with a loud crumble to the ground. The metal erupting a mushroom cloud of dust that only seems to amplify its sickening smash againt the floor.

Above them, the fluorescent lights flicker for two seconds too long to not worry. And behind them in the direction of the white rooms a shrill alarm starts blasting. Billy takes no time in listening to it.

He rushes forward into the barren room, his feet crunching across particles of cement that must hurt, must cut them to pieces. But he doesn’t stop. He’s got a bulls terror in his eyes as he rushes the double wooden doors standing on the other side of the room. Billy lifts one foot, the muscles in his thigh flexing under the strained material of his sweatpants, and sends it crashing through the wood.

Steve would quip about seeing the sun, coming out of his cave after three days, ain’t it great to feel fried under it, but he doesn’t. Only steps causiously behind Billy as he stills.

Their in the garden. Steve faintly notices the high wall of shrubs littered with blue and white flowers. He’s mostly focused on the way Billy’s chest is beating with his heart.

Steve tucks his gun back into his belt, carefully approaches arms stretched outwards to Billy. He gets his hands on him, two cold thin things that block Billy’s glossy skin from soaking up the sun. But he’s grounding him. Bringing him back to the present.

Blue eyes stop swimming as they turn to Steve. His chest relaxes. His muscles turn to jelly under the soft touch of Steve’s hands as they hold tightly onto his hips.

Steve and Billy watch each other take greedy gulps of fresh air for what seems like hours. Their whole map drawn down to one point.

Until there’s a clap. Just one steady one, before a moment of silence and then more. Someone clapping rapidly above them.

The plush grass under them seems to give way as Steve’s stomach drops out. If they’re in the garden that means there’s a balcony above them. Set with a nice iron table and matching chairs painted white. Clean plates sitting stacked with cut vegetables for lunch. What felt like hours under the house, wasn’t so above it.

“Harrington,” a voice calls over the melodious clapping. “Steve Harrington,” then the clapping stops. And Cyle Cooper leans so both his hands are on the banister of the balcony. Leans so he looking down like a king over them.

“I must admit; I’m impressed. Truly. I thought my men were well trained and my doors strong. But, I must have underestimated the strength of a true crime family heir.”

Steve doesn’t take his hands off Billy. He turns them, moves so his body is in front of Billy’s. Moves so his hand is splayed out across Billy’s stomach and if they try and shoot him they have to send the bullet through Steve first.

“But you have to imagine I cannot let you walk?” Cyle laughs. A dry, sour thing that crawls out of his thin throat. “Not after killing 4 of my men— and trying to steal my favorite toy? Tisk tisk.”

“The deal is as dead as your men, Cooper!” Steve calls up to him, his teeth bared in a snarl. “And people can’t be stolen or sold. Harrington family doesn’t work with toy traders!”

“Spare me,” Cyle spits.

Steve scans around the garden for a second, takes in the entrance as another gate to his left, but then on the right there’s a break in the shrubs that leads to a forest. Or figuring California, a swamp land or some other gross adventure he doesn’t feel like taking. Billy couldn’t take barefoot half naked. He snaps his eyes back with a glare.

“Fuck you!” Steve yells.

“I was going to keep you, Steve, as a toy. Made up your room neatly. Could you imagine, just for me, how much money a toy like you could bring in?” Cyle motions behind him with a flick of his wrist. More guards, more navy suits, more shotguns.

“You might have taken the place of my favorite if the price wasn’t satisfactory. But I assure you, it would have been. If only you would have listnened,” Cyle shook his head, making that same ticking noise. Disappointment to his tone that was making Steve’s skin crawl.

Then he felt it, Billy’s fingers sliding across the small of his back, digging into the shirt he had tucked into his belt, wrapping those fingers around the hilt of Steve’s gun.

Make it count, he wanted to say, wanted to warn Billy from the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t move. Kept Cyle leveled in his sight. And stayed unmoving as Billy’s hand slowly brought the gun upwards.

Cyle kept talking, loving the sound of his own voice, as he said with a smile, “I haven’t quite drawn up what I’m going to tell your father when I have to send your body back to him riddled with holes. But I’m sure I can think-,”

His head snaps backwards, his thin neck broken like it couldn’t hold the weight of someone so cruel any longer. Behind him a spray of red and visceral gore sprays into the pristine balcony. Cyle’s head comes back, for one second, and there’s a hole in his forehead the size of a silver dollar dripping a line of red down the middle of his face.

Around him the men are stunned. They wait until the head of the family’s limp body crumbles to the ground before they move. By then, Steve is already running.

He’s got Billy by the arm pushing him in front as they race towards the gate to the gardens. Behind them guns start going off but it too erratic, too messy, no shots get close. They crash into the gate with heavy limbs together. Scrambling to get a hold on the bars. Steve panics for a moment as they don’t move, as they stay closed tightly.

But Billy’s got his hands under Steve’s hips and hoists him, shoving the thinner man up the bars and towards the pointed spikes on top.

Steve grabs the top bar that runs horizontal and lets his body move with the adrenaline. Feels the shouting and gunfire getting closer and closer with each pump of his heart. So he grabs, and lifts himself, careful to not touch the tips but ends up getting his sleeve ripped by one anyway. It doesn’t cut skin, he only registers as he lowers his arm to reach for Billy.

Their hands clasp, sweaty and dirty, and Billy’s still covered in dried blood, but they meet. And they are strong. Steve lifts with his whole life as he pulls Billy to the top with him.

“Jump!” Billy demands before he’s even at the top, shouts out over the increasing volume behind them.

There’s a second Steve wants to snap back, roll his eyes and chastise him for stating the obvious, but he simply nods. His muscles filling with acid as they are pushed to their limits getting Billy to the top.

On the bar, they swing one leg over at the same time, the spikes of the gate slicing into their clothes and their skin, but they jump.

Land on the driveway below with a harsh thud. Steve’s legs feel like breaking apart under him. He forces them not to, steadies himself steal hard as he breaks into a run down the drive.

Right next to him is the splatter of naked feet on the ground, taking wide and panicked steps farther and farther away. Steve pumps his elebows to keep up. Feels the wind rushing through his shredded shirt as they reach the end of the driveway and turn.

Billy’s in front now and he’s got a plan. He’s holding all the cards, Steve remembers, and now the gun. So he keeps on his back.

The sounds of screaming men behind them never really feel like they are fading away.

The simple driveway up the garden gives way to a line of trees. Huge sprawling things like a forest up on either side of Steve. They are different from the ones back in Indiana, peeling white bark and huge green leaves that bend in the hot California sun, but he’s run though forests before. Run from gunfire before.

“We have to turn into the trees,” he hollers up to Billy, only as loud as he needs to be. His breath panting with the effort. “The roads are not going to be safe for long!”

Billy doesn’t seem to listen, keeps pushing forward. Steve takes a long gulp of breath to ready another insult, when Billy stops.

Stops right in the middle of the street. Turns around, scans the trees that cluster the side of the road. Keeps searching as Steve comes up in front of him and pulls on his arm.

“What-,” he gets one syllable before Billy’s moving off the road and into the trees.

Steve keeps his arm on Steve, feels like he’s being lead around by a sleed dog in the snow with how blurry the green whips by, and how frantic his movements are over uneven ground.

There’s moss and rocks and dead things that start digging into his socks. The fabric already melting with the mud under foot, and the blood that must be seeping out from his raw skin. He winces and worries, and powers though it. Thinks if he’s in pain, Billy’s in more pain. This is nothing.

“Just ahead,” Billy breaks his scolding of himself, yanking Steve by his own grasp to keep up. “Just ahead!” he repeats in a sharp order.

Steve follows. His breath ragged gasps but his grip sure on Billy’s arm.

The trees give way to a clearing. Some of the sunlight that was blocked by the overhang is now pouring down again. Steve lifts one hand to shield his face. He feels the grip he has on Billy’s arm lead him farther inwards.

The pull doesn’t stop until his knees are knocking into metal. He slams his hands down and they hit like hitting the hood of a car, and he is. Billy rips off a woven net that’s designed to look like a fallen pile of dead leaves and Steve gasps out loud.

He more so moans out loud as Billy knocks off a few remaining real life leaves from the top of a sleak light blue colored muscle car.

“What in the fuck is this doing here?” Steve asks dumbfounded.

Billy grins, ripping the door open with a hiss of unused air, “get in, pretty boy, she’s mine,” he orders.

Steve wants to ask more but his hesrt has been bouncing inside his chest jackrabbit quick as painfully as his feet have been cut by the road. So he spares it one second before he’s opening the passenger side door with his own hiss of air and jumping in.

Knocking the visor down, a cluster of keys drop out onto Billy’s lap. They jingle as he fumbles with them, spinning them around his swollen red hands before he finds the one he shoves into the starter and cranks the car to life.

“Holy shit!” Steve’s laughing, gripping the dashboard as Billy spins the tires ferociously. They dig up grass and mud and spin before the catch and lurch them backwards.

“Holy shit!” Billy agrees as he makes a jarring stop and a sharp turn around the clearing before driving them back out onto the road.

His barefoot presses the gas down to the floor as they steady out on the street. The guards haven’t even caught up with them. Steve feels it in his guts he could have sat though a car chase, some sleazey black SUVs trailing them close enough to push their bumper trying to send them spinning off into a tree, all the while Billy has both hands on the wheel grinning like a shark and out smarting them every turn.

But they’re alone, zipping down the black top as fast as Steve’s heart beats. Slowly, slowly, slowing down only as they pass the city limits sign and come to a stop at a red light. It seems out of place, seems a mockery of what they’ve been though. But Billy stops as he should at the light.

“Billy Hargrove,” Steve finally gets out.

The light turns back to green and they, the only car at the light, rumbles forward.

“Steve Harrington,” Billy says back.

Their eyes meet for a second. Steve is digging around the side of Billy’s head with his eyes, long white fingers leafing though manilla folders in a file cabinet.

“Who’s car is this?” Steve asks.

“Mine,” Billy scoffs at the idea the showy body of a well kept vintage muscle car could be anyone else’s.

“This isn’t a guard’s car, or Cooper’s car, or someone from the outside-,”

“No, Steve, this is my car!” Billy snaps. He turns for a second from the road, and his big blue eyes are remorseful. Steve watches him think for a second, mulling something over in that fuzzy mess of blond hair, before Billy reaches forward and pops open the glove box.

Out spills papers, loose but nearly kept together in one pile. They fall as Billy nudges with his fingers inside to get a folded piece of leather. He withdraws it, snaps it open for Steve to see the golden badge inside.

“Special Agent Hargrove,” he introduces himself.

Steve’s mouth goes dry, his back spine straightening and pressing into his seat harshly.

“I was undercover, let them take me trying to break in. We had a woman who was being a rat for us on the inside go missing. She was a cook, and I think she got found out. My chief said don’t fucking do it,” Billy paused to push out pained laugher. “You’re gonna get yourself killed, you hot headed idiot, or worse, sold like meat.”

Steve was staying quiet. Just listening.

“Y’see, it was all speculation until I got in. She said they were trading toys, no jumps in kidnappings or missing persons to prove she was right. I believed her but- I’m just one person on a whole force.”

The back roads of forests gave way almost quickly to a coastal shore boulevard. Or maybe Steve was distracted by something else. He could only catch the glimpses of the neon signs and the other headlights of the cars around them from the reflections off Billy’s eyes, and the sweat still on his brow.

“Steve?” Billy asked. Waking him from a slumber.

“Yeah,” he felt like he was stoned, swimming in a cloud of Mary Jane like he was someone else.

Billy flicked his eyes over once, twice, before Steve started blinking the fog from his mind.

“You’re a fucking cop?” he gets the words out in an unflattering guttural yell.

Billy winces, but Steve doesn’t give him time to reply. “All this time, all of that- that- you watched me kill people! You watched me kill a whole handful of people and you never said- wait, you killed someone! I let you! You blew Cooper’s brain out the back of his head like Kennedy and you didn’t think to mention you’re a fucking cop?”

“Steve,” Billy groans his name in a plea.

“Shut up,” Steve snaps at him, throwing his hands in the air as he makes his point. “You know who I am, right? A fucking Harrington. And you knew I was there to make a deal for cocaine trafficking, Jesus H Christ, how did you even know that? And you met me and let me introduce myself- that’s entrapment, right?”

“Steve,” Billy pulls to a stop at a read light, the glow casting over Steve’s pretty face hell fire as he keeps talking.

“And, and... I was flirting with you- like actually flirting because I was trying to make you feel better and you’re really fucking hot! And you’re a cop? This is crazy- this is crazy!” He runs his hands though his wild long brown hair to steady himself.

“Steve!” Billy tries one more time, his voice raw with use and neglected from likely not getting enough water as he was held captive. As a toy, a piece of property with a price. And he walked right into the jaws because he’s a special agent with something to prove.

They watch each other. Billy’s turned from the road. Steve’s leaned forward in his seat tilted to the side to lock Billy into a glare. Their eyes are matching; blood shot red and swollen and dilated from panic.

Steve gives himself the benefit of the doubt he hasn’t done this before, but without thinking he dives forward and steals Billy’s lips in a rough kiss.

Billy moans into it, a desperate thing, as he feels Steve whimper against his lips. Tongue comes out demanding a taste of the other. Even if Billy’s lips are chapped with blood from his busted nose he’s delicious to Steve, draws out a hot groan that vibrates the leather across the seats.

One of Steve’s hands grip against Billy’s jaw, feeling how strong the bone is and how the muscles move as he sucks his tongue down into his mouth. The other hand grabs a shoulder for balance and leaves shallow scratches of more red across Billy’s skin.

He doesn’t care, they don’t care as cars behind them honk because they were stopped at a red light and now stopped under a green light.

Billy keeps his hand on the steering wheel, at 12, for if they do decide to drive again. But only one, as the right had slips around Steve’s torso leaned across the center console and reaches down to cup his perky bubble butt. Drawing out more moans, purring needy and growling hot for attention right into Billy’s mouth. Steve even bucks back into the hand as it grips so hard it might bruise.

With one sharp honk and someone leaning out their window to yell, Billy has to be the one to part. Pulling back just enough to press his forehead to Steve’s.

He watches the way the other man is panting for him, his lips swollen and cheery red. Dripping with spit. Billy gives another squeeze on his ass just to watch Steve as he bucks. He looks beautiful, just as beautiful as he looked back in that white hallway prison saving his ass from being another toy.

“Babe,” Billy drawls, has to push Steve back into his seat when he tries to get another kiss.

“I’m gonna take you back to my apartment,” Billy starts laying out what he wants to do with a steady voice, “we’re gonna shower together. Nice and long and hot, so fucking hot-,”

“Take me there, Bill,” and it’s a simple charm he’s got.

Steve settles back into the seat with a nod, his mind catching up with his body and he blushes under the attention of blue eyes. Feels the car rumble back to life under his bones that are desperate for release after being strung so tightly.

Billy watches Steve take steadying breaths. With a practiced and professional air, Steve gets his pulse back under control. Running his hands through his hair again to stabilize himself.

There’s a rush of questions, of finals and goodbyes and how in the hell is this ever going to work out. Billy focuses on the road, Steve reaches forward and takes the gun out of the hem of Billy’s pants. He shoves it in the glovebox where the badge was hidden away and closes the latch with a soft click.

Flicking the radio on, Steve spins the dial to a local radio show, a soft voice announcing the day and weather like everything was normal. Everyone was normal.

“Then,” Billy interrupts the radio, talks over it with a serious tone that has Steve watching out the corner of his eye.

“Then I want you to make a statement. Be a proper witness. Give us the proof we need?”

The last part is said like a question. Billy realizing he can’t truly make demands, Steve could leave at anytime. Steve isn’t a nobody he saved off the street in a patrol car sweep, Steve is a crime family heir who saved him, either out of the softness in his heart or the hard dick in his pants he wasn’t sure. But Billy’s surprised when he doesn’t have to beg.

Steve reclines back into the seat easy, his head tilted back so he can flash Billy a warm smile. Folding up his soft cheeks and wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “Give me a pen name and I’ll be your pen pal, hot shot,” Steve whispers.

“That’s something I can do, pretty boy,” Billy answers, his foot pressing the gas just a little over speed limit to get him to that warm shower quicker.


End file.
